Bread for busy people

I found this recipe when visiting the King Arthur website a month ago. I love their flours, especially the unbleached bread flour and the white whole wheat flour. (It's made from white wheat instead of red wheat.) If you want to learn to bake bread, the KA website is the place to go. They have some great recipes, and they have helpful people to answer your questions when things don't go well. In fact, I enjoy reading the Q&A as much as the basic recipes, because it helps me to avoid problems.

I played with refrigerator dough a lot this summer, and this recipe pretty much removes any objection to "I don't have time to bake bread." You mix up several loaves at once and store the dough in the frig for up to a week. The KA recipe credits Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day for their inspiration, but I originally found a refrigerator dough recipe in one of my old cookbooks, so this is not a new concept.

When I make this bread, I use my Kitchen Aid stand mixer with the dough hook, and I keep adding flour until the dough is not sticky. In the book, the dough is very sticky, and they say the dough is less sticky after you refrigerate it, but I don't have the patience to refrigerate dough before using it, so I need it to be workable within a couple hours of mixing it up. I've continued using it for five or six days, and it still worked fine.

This concept is so great because you can make fresh bread anytime you want it. My husband and I were home alone one day, so I pulled off just enough dough for two rolls and baked them for our lunch. We've also used this for pizza dough. After two or three days, it takes on a delicious sourdough flavor, which is nice, because you don't have to deal with a sourdough starter, but you still get that great sour taste naturally.

I've seen bread recipes in the past that had no sugar or fat, but I never had the courage to try them, assuming they would be bland and dry. After seeing the French bread recipe in French Women Don't Get Fat, I decided to give it a try, and I loved it. It's my new favorite bread! It's hard to believe that only four ingredients (flour, water, salt, yeast) can yield such delicious results, but it's true.

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